SRC Testimony: Eileen Duffey

On Thursday, October 16th, ten members of the Caucus testified before the SRC. This week we will be posting some of their testimonies in written form.

Good evening.

I am coming up on three years on not having missed an SRC meeting. I am a volunteer citizen I do this at the end of my work day and I have learned an awful lot about citizenship. I have learned an awful lot about things that are disconcerting. I have to spend a lot of effort and energy to keep myself from becoming very cynical with regards to what we are in the midst of.

I had a few remarks prepared, but some of my colleagues in the Caucus of Working Educators and other citizens tonight have done better than I could do myself. I have just one burning question that came up when I was sitting in the audience tonight and that is: “Why does Mark Gleason even have to sign up to speak at an SRC meeting?”

Mark Gleason runs the Great School Compact. He is the person who is essentially running this school district behind closed doors in meetings that most of the people here are not invited to attend.

Why is Mark Gleason’s presence even necessary? Seeing him only reminds us that the best kept secret in Philadelphia is that Mark Gleason, the SRC members in front of me, Dr. Hite, the governor, the mayor, and to some extent the media have been involved in a full court press effort to destroy this district from within and without, leaving a few dozen of us spending every moment of our waking hours, with zero compensation--people at the grassroots level--trying to hold up this public school district--trying to get a vision of a real school district that people who live in this city would want to send their children to.

We are all onto you and, I think increasingly you won’t be a best-kept secret because we are committed to getting this word out.

And speaking of not backing down -- Ms. Simms, you haven’t seen anything yet.